Whales can still earn and speculate: buy low and sell high as @jacobts say.
If earning from curating is no more feasible I think it's good for Steemit as a social blogging platform.
Curation (before experiment) makes bots and whale earning, but it destroys the meaning of upvoting. IMO upvote should mean "I red and I like it", not "I automatically vote based on patterns / rules" or "I think more people and bots will vote this". This way of curating kills the social side of Steem(it).